Noob with 1000 questions.

My name is Adam, I'm 21. I have a good friend called (Well, I won’t give her real name away, she probably wouldn't want me sharing her current state with strangers ), Let’s call her Sarah, she's a girl, 19 years old and she's going away to university next year. I met her through work 10 months ago. Lately we've become very good friends and I hope it stays that way. We both live in England and she's from Lithuania, at the moment her family have gone back to Lithuania for 1 month to visit the family and Sarah has decided to stay home by herself. It's the first time she's been left alone by herself and she's worried about ghosts! She stays up all night reading with the lights on because she's so scared (haha). Anyway next week I'm taking her camping and she’s scared stiffness but trusts me, I'm quite a keen camper, I go around 6 times annually, so I’ve managed to talk her into it.
Anyway, anyway, when she leaves for university in 2 months, I want to write her a short personal story as a goodbye present.
The reason I told you a little bit about her at the beginning is because I want to use that as my Theme for the story. Focusing on moving on and becoming more independent, being able to look back and think how silly you were. So I would like to make the book a little funny as I could imagine her reading it in a years’ time being able to look back and laugh about it.
As you’ve probably guessed from reading this post my writing skills and vocabulary are very poor. So I’m going to need all the help I can get.
I would also like to ask, when writing a book and using yourself as a character. Is that hard? I mean if you make someone up you could give him a stupid name, made up mental condition he suffers from and give him a 7 foot long.... Nose, there’s no boundaries. I’ll also be using Sarah as a character as I know her. Would it be easier to make characters or use myself and the people I know?
Anyway it’s very late and I’m very tired, so I’ll refresh this in the morning and thank you for any responses in advanced.

On a totally random and weird note, for no apparent reason, here is a picture of me having a bath; I had a bath for the first time in 2 years today! I always take showers (I’m easily entertained)

Most new writers write themselves as the main character, whether they realize it or not. But as a writer, you have to be ready to coldly inflict terribel pain and tragedy upon your characters if the story demands it. It's best not to be too emotionally attached to your characters.

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Hye Adam! Welcome to the forums! To answer your question about if it's harder to write a story using yourself as a character I would say no. I think it would be easier because to be able to write awesome characters you need to know them like they're your best friend, or even yourself. So I would say it's probably easier to use people you know then making p a character.

In a way, I think it can be more difficult to write a true story about my experiences. The reason it can be difficult is because if I am writing a story about myself, I already know why I did what I did. When writing a true story, I have ocassionally gotten feedback from readers that says, 'That could never happen." Then, I have to go back and look to see what foundation for my actions or the actions of other characters that I may have accidentally omited that would have shown the reasons for the characters' actions.

Now, I have written many fictional stories that have included one factual situation or statement. Sometimes, adding one true element makes a story feel more grounded, at least to me. In fact, many of my story ideas come from taking something that actually happened and building a fictional story around it. To me, this is one of the easiest ways to create a believable and interesting story.

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